My nephew Jake is a prodigy, and is already tackling QM!
Two more books dispatched: Art of the Deal, and Deception Point.
August 3, 2019 Incoherent ramblings, Reviews Art of the Deal, book review, Dan Brown, Deception Point, Trump
I’ve been working hard to take down my backlog of books to read, and have now finished two more.
1) Trump’s: The Art of the Deal.
Other possible alternate titles for this book would be “How I financed my projects at others’ expense using tax rebates and other tricks”, and “How I used PR to get what I want.” Reading this leaves you with the slightly nauseous feeling that you have after talking to a slimy used car salesman. A lot of what was stated left me with the feeling that relevant facts were being omitted. I’d like to see a fact checking “Coles Notes” for this book, and to look at how the projects that are named in the book are doing now.
I am inclined to enumerate all the people that Trump mentions in the book and dig into the relationships that Trump took the time to name drop in this book. Trump’s pedophile buddy Epstein didn’t make the cut in the book, but Adnan Khashoggi did. A lot of the other names I didn’t recognize.
EDIT: here’s some backstory on the book. Included in that article was one more interesting name drop, Roy Cohn, Trump’s lawyer. That name may have been mentioned in the book, but if so, I didn’t recognize it when I read that part of the book. With Epstein’s case reactivated, I now recognize Cohn’s name from Whitney Webb’s writing [1], [2] and her interview with Pierce Redmond.
2) Dan Brown’s: Deception point.
This book would be a lot better as a movie. Like a lot of Michael Crichton books, this one moves very fast, but is pretty shallow, as well as predictable and probably forgettable. I did enjoy it, but it’s definitely not one to keep, and I intend to bring it to the second hand bookstore, or if they don’t want it, to the communal take-or-leave a book shelf at the recycling depot.
References
[1] Hidden in Plain Sight: The Shocking Origins of the Jeffrey Epstein Case
[2] Government by Blackmail: Jeffrey Epstein, Trump’s Mentor and the Dark Secrets of the Reagan Era
Gatto’s “Dumbing Us Down”
July 20, 2019 Incoherent ramblings Dumbing Us Down, education, Gatto, school
I’ve just read John Taylor Gatto’s “Dumbing Us Down, the hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling.” I’ve heard Brett Veinotte on the School Sucks Podcast talk about Gatto’s exposition of the origins of the North American school system. Given that, I expected a lot more from this particular book. Instead this book is a largely a collection of speeches, converted into essay form, as opposed to a systematic deconstruction of the school system.
I did enjoy those essays, but my reaction included a lot of “Sir, you are preaching to the choir.” I am guessing that the book that I really wanted was his “The Underground History of American Education“, which weighs in at ~450 pages.
A interesting video with some analysis of the Wim Hof method
July 14, 2019 Incoherent ramblings body temperature regulation, cold shock, Scientology, Wim Hof
I’d heard the Wim Hof interview on Joe Rogan a while ago (youtube link no longer available), which was pretty interesting.
Due to the indoctrination of my youth(*), I recognize that I’m predisposed to the idea that the mind can control the body, so the techniques that Wof described in the Rogan podcast seemed plausible. However, that plausibility wasn’t enough to make me want to spend the money me to purchase his book.
I have to admit that I did try some Wim Hof style intense breathing before jumping in the late fall 50F pool, after some time in the hot tub. I suspect that I was not doing the breathing exercises correctly. At that pool temperature, without the ablity to self-regulate my body heat, I find that I don’t warm up, even after a number of laps.
For anybody that finds the idea of body self regulation interesting, here is some analysis of the Wim Hof method on the medlife youtube channel. It may not be the way to acquire Bene Gesserit like abilities, however, if you also have the urge to play the hot-tub/cold-pool alternation game, or climb mountains, it does sound like the breathing techniques are worth knowing.
Footnotes:
(*) I grew up Scientology household where the actor at the head of the body-mind-spirit story is an all-powerful entity, somewhat akin to a Jin, but in need of significant re-training.
Two monitors wasn’t enough
July 12, 2019 Incoherent ramblings
I’ve got a double headed set of thunderbolt Mac monitors for most of my work, but do most of my work through ssh to a pair of headless Intel NUCs
Those are the systems where I run my “mainframes”. Every couple months I usually end up re-imaging one or both of my NUCs, which is a bit of a pain, since I need a monitor attached for that operation, and the Mac monitors are designed to not work with anything non-apple, and don’t even have an HDMI input. This means hauling out an old VGA LCD monitor that floats around the house, scrambling around to find an HDMI/VGA adapter, and then putting it all away when I’m done.
With a reimage of my “nuc2″ overdue, I bit the bullet and forked out $60 CAD for a cute little 7” LCD Starto brand monitor that I can keep on my desk for when I need it:
I’ll also be able to bring it on the road with me with one of the NUCs, like when I go to the office in Zurich, or to the Raincode office in Brussels, since I always need a temporary display to find my IP address on such trips (at home I can use the fing app on my phone to find my IP address after boot.) The new monitor looks a little funny against the backdrop of the giant Mac monitors (see it hiding right between them behind the mac itself), but it will do the job nicely for the very occasional uses I’ll have for it.
